


Out from the Shadow-Lands

by caramelsilver



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen, a problem of susan fic, post- Last Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-23
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 04:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelsilver/pseuds/caramelsilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The morning was grey. When she looked out the window, it looked as if someone had forgotten to put the colour on this day.” After the death of her family, Susan tries to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

The morning was grey. When she looked out the window, it looked as if someone had forgotten to put the colour on this day. It was still early though, and she hoped the sun would come out. Considering what kind of day this was going to be for her, it was a little strange that she wanted sunshine. But she knew that Lucy would’ve wanted the day to shine. And since this would be the morning she was going to bury her sister and the rest of her family, she wanted sun, for Lucy. 

Susan looked at herself in the mirror, at the pale- faced girl reflected there. Her eyes were dull and red-rimmed. Susan then looked around the room. It was where she and Lucy had grown up. Well, the second time anyway.

Their childhood room. 

She looked at her own bed. The sheets were rumbled and unmade. She had spent the whole night alone in her bed crying. The tears hadn’t come before that. She had gone days without shedding tears. 

_Susan was home alone. Her siblings were out doing something she didn’t approve of, and her parents were coming home from Brighton, where they had been visiting old friends, the next morning. So, she had spent the weekend all alone. Last night she had spent out dancing with her girlfriends. It had been all kinds of fun and she had not arrived home before the sunrise. She had spent the entire morning and afternoon sleeping and she did not wake up before the sun went down._

_Susan spent the evening restless; she couldn’t sit down or get anything accomplished. It was as if she was waiting for something, but she didn’t know what. Her family wouldn’t come home before tomorrow and she didn’t have any plans. Maybe that was it? That she was just bored. She was on the verge of calling up Mary and asking her if she wanted to do something, when the door bell rang._

_Puzzled, she went to open it, on the other side of the door stood a young constable. His face was solemn and he looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but there._

_“Hello,” Susan said politely._

_The constable bowed his head and asked “Are you Miss Susan Pevensie?”_

_“Yes, I am,” Susan answered. He looked at her with pity and she suddenly dreaded what he had to say._

_“There has been an accident, Miss,” he said slowly._

_Susan went rigid and started to shake her head. ‘No, no, no’ screamed the voice in her head, but she managed to say somewhat politely, “What kind of accident, sir?”_

_“A railway accident,” the policeman said._

_“Which train?” she managed to choke out. In her heart she already knew, someone in her family was dead._

_“The one from Brighton, Miss,” was the answer._

_“My parents are dead, aren’t they?” Susan asked as calmly as she could. The policeman squirmed and nodded his head. When he didn’t make a move to leave, she asked: “What else?” in a sharp tone._

_“I’m- I’m so sorry Miss Pevensie, it seems like your siblings were on that train, too,” he stammered out and wouldn’t look her in the eye._

_At that she felt her limbs go cold, and then she fainted._

When she woke up her aunt was there with her; Anne, her father’s sister. The next days were a blur to her. She remembered that she had insisted on the best of everything for the funeral. After all, her siblings where royals, a queen and kings, only the best would do. 

Then the night before the funeral arrived. Her aunt had sent her to bed early. And then, only then, when she was alone in her childhood room, the room that contained two beds, but where now only one of them was ever to be used again, did she cry. The tears that hadn’t wanted to come before were all coming now and she spent hours crying, until she didn’t have any tears left. Exhausted, she finally fell asleep.

Her eyes strayed over to the part of the room that she had tried not to look at too much. Lucy’s half of the room. Her bed, which she had made herself before she went, was just as pristine as she had left it. Susan hadn’t touched it. She liked to think that the last person to touch it had been her little sister. 

Beside the bed stood a night stand, and on the stand lay a stack of books. After they had returned from Narnia, Lucy had started to read a lot. She had started with the fairy tales and worked her way up to longer, more complicated stories. Susan looked around the room to look for more books, but there weren’t any. The only ones in the room were the ones on Lucy’s night stand. _I wonder why that is?_ Susan thought. It hurt a little that she honestly didn’t know why there weren’t more books in the room. 

Curious, she walked over to the stand to see what her sister had been reading before …the accident. The book atop of the stack turned out to be the Bible. That surprised Susan. Lucy hadn’t been much of a Christian, as much as Susan could remember. Lucy was a Narnian and she believed in Aslan. 

A soft knock pierced through Susan’s thoughts. 

“Are you awake, dear?” Aunt Anne asked, her voice muffled by the door.

“Yes, I am,” she answered. She walked over and opened the door. Her aunt looked back at her. 

“How are you feeling?” the older woman asked with sympathy radiating from her eyes. Susan couldn’t stand it and had to look away. 

“I’m okay, I guess,” Susan mumbled back. Had it been any other day, her aunt would have scolded her for not speaking properly, but not today. Anne sighed. 

“Get dressed now, and we’ll have a nice breakfast before we leave for the church.” 

At the mention of the church, Susan involuntarily flinched. Today was the day. After today it would be final. Her family was dead. 

She nodded before closing the door. She walked over to the closet and took out the black outfit she knew was hanging there waiting for her.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

The dress was quite pretty. Susan would’ve liked it if it hadn’t been bought for this occasion. The last time Susan ever wore something similar to the dress she was holding now, was at her grandfather’s funeral. It had happened when she was twelve and all four of them had been dressed up in pretty black mourning clothes. 

Susan put on the dress without thinking much of it. _After today, I’m never going to wear this again!_ she silently vowed. 

While buckling her shoes, she thought about all the things she wanted to say to her siblings. All the things that went unsaid and all the things she actually _had_ said. She had sinned and now there were no one left to forgive her. 

She always thought that she had all the time in the world. _That really is a side effect to have lived two lifetimes_ , Susan thought dryly. 

When she fought with her siblings she had always thought that in time they would see her side of it. She hadn’t forgotten. She really hadn’t. But there had been a time when all she wanted was to forget. So she stopped talking about their time in Narnia. She stopped participating in the talks her siblings had about their country. She didn’t want to be reminded of it. But her siblings wouldn’t let it go. They wouldn’t leave her alone, wanted to know what was wrong. And she needed to make them stop, because every memory hurt her more than any sword ever could. She knew that she had to hurt them, to make them stop. She did it so she could have some peace. So that she could live the life she had now. 

She said that she didn’t remember anymore. She mocked them, said that it had been a wonderful game, but wasn’t it time to grow up?

The first time she said it, she could see their hearts breaking. Lucy’s eyes filled up with tears, Peter’s face portrayed a hurt that cut her to watch, but Edmund was the one who felt the most betrayed. He couldn’t believe that she could do this, to him, to them, to Narnia. 

She had lied with the full knowledge of what it would do to them. All she wanted was for them to just stop talking about everything. She had done it in the belief that one day they would understand why she had betrayed them. Because betrayed them, she had. But now they were dead, and she knew that she had been in the wrong. 

She thought her life would be better if she could banish the memory of Narnia as _she_ had been banished. That she could finally live the life she had now, without Narnia and Aslan interfering. She had thought that she couldn’t live her life, that her siblings couldn’t live _their_ lives, if they couldn’t let go of Narnia. 

Aslan had given them Narnia; he had made them kings and queens. He had let them live wonderful lives, and then he had taken it away. He had pulled them out without any warning. And then, when she had finally learned how to be a normal girl in England again, they got pulled back in. It annoyed her that someone could just summon them! And it was _her_ horn that had pulled them back. The Narnia they had been summoned to wasn’t their country anymore and that hurt her even more. What greater way to be shown that she wasn’t needed then to pull her into a time when she was only legend. Then Aslan told her that she couldn’t come back. That was the time she decided to stop thinking about Narnia. Narnia didn’t want her, so why should she want Narnia?

She stood up from the chair and looked at herself again in the mirror. What she saw was a grieving woman in a black dress. She put her hair back in a tight knot in the base of her neck, and then put on the small black hat with a little black veil. She had been chasing a dream for so many years, to be a woman, a lady again. She had thought that she had achieved it a long time ago, but one look in the mirror today told her that she was wrong. Up until this moment she had only been a teenager: A silly young girl, running from one party to the next, and not having time for her family anymore. 

She reached for the black gloves her aunt had picked out for her. Her hand stopped midways when she realized whose gloves they were. They had belonged to her mother. She had been admiring them for years. They were made of soft silk and were wonderful to wear. Susan had wanted to borrow them many times, but her mother always told her no. In the beginning it was because Susan was too young and the gloves had belonged to Helen Pevensie’s mother, they were very dear to her heart, and she didn’t want to risk Susan ruining them. Later, it had been because Helen firmly believed that black was not something young girls should wear. 

Susan laughed a bitter laugh as she slowly pulled on the gloves. _Who would’ve guessed that the first time I got to wear your gloves would be at your funeral?_

She looked at her hands. Her hands were a feature of her body that she didn’t like anymore. 

The last time she was this age, she had been a queen. But she hadn’t been a pampered and spoiled queen; she had done her work, chipped in when needed be. In reality she had been a housewife, only that her house had been a little bigger then most. She had been in charge of running the castle. She had been the one to make sure that the cooks made the food that had been ordered. When the kitchen needed extra hands she had always volunteered hers. After some years she had become an excellent cook. She had been the one to oversee that the laundry had been done, and always helped when they needed her. She knew all the ins and outs of making a castle run smoothly. The knowledge had come in handy when they came back to England. Her mother had always been thrilled when she had helped her around the house. 

Her hands had been the testament to her hard work. She had always, in a strange way, been proud of her hands. They looked like a worker’s hands, not a queen’s. But when she had been turned back into a child all her hard work had been swept of her body. Now as she was wearing her mother’s gloves, she knew that the hands underneath the silk were the hands of a spoiled girl. The spoiled girl she had become. 

Susan took one last look around the room she had once shared with her little sister. As she walked out the door she decided that she would never sleep in it again. 

As she was walking to the staircase she felt the urge to look into her brothers’ room first. It was situated in the other end of the corridor. She walked down the path she had walked many times before. Peter and Edmund had gotten the bigger room, and so they had all always ended playing in the boys’ room instead of theirs. 

She stopped before opening the door. She closed her eyes and imagined what she was going to see. The room was blue, and on the wall hung a painting that Lucy had made as a birthday present to Edmund a couple of years ago. She had painted a big golden lion standing on a grassy hill. Both Edmund and Peter had been thrilled and it had been hanging on their wall ever since.

 _I think I will be bringing the painting with me when I leave,_ she thought before entering the room. 

The room was a little messy. But like Lucy, they had both made their beds before leaving the room. They had been brought up properly, after all. 

The first thing that hit Susan was that all the books that were missing in the girls’ room had apparently made their way here. Peter and Edmund had a bookcase filled to the brim with books. Most of them were adventure stories, many of them were about historic battles, and a few of them were about trains. 

On Edmund’s night stand lay a big book about battle tactics. The sight of it triggered a memory that Susan hadn’t thought of in a long time:

_It was the night of their coronation. The air was cool and the sun was going down. Susan had just spent the last minutes dancing a wild dance with a faun. The dance had been tremendously fun, but she just didn’t have the stamina to keep going for hours like the fauns did. After fifteen minutes of complicated steps she had to go sit down. She sat down at her throne, trying to catch her breath while watching the dryads and fauns. The unfamiliar weight of her crown was still strange to her, and she got shivers running down her spine every time she thought the word ‘queen.’_

_It was there that her brothers found her. Edmund was running towards her wearing a wide grin._

_“Look out there, Ed, lest you want to split your face in two!” she teased her little brother. Then she suddenly was afraid that he would take offence to her teasing like he used to. But her fears vanished when he only smiled wider._

_“Oh, but Su, I have to most wonderful news!” He was almost bouncing, he was so excited. She could only laugh with him as his joy was contagious._

_“Well then, why don’t you tell me?” Susan asked._

_The boy shook his head, and looked around the Great Hall. When he spotted Peter, he waved him over._

_Susan’s curiosity had been piqued. What could possibly make Edmund bounce with excitement?_

_“Peter, get over here, so I can tell Susan!” Edmund shouted. Peter came jogging up to them with a huge grin on his face._

_“You couldn’t simply wait so I could finish talking to General Oreius?” Peter jokingly scolded. “After you bounced out to tell everybody, I had to stand and listen to rest the good centaur had to tell us.”_

_Edmund coloured slightly. “Sorry,” he mumbled._

_Peter looked at Susan and together they tried not to laugh at their younger brother. It was wonderful how much Edmund had changed the last couple of days. It had been such a long time since Susan had heard Edmund apologize without being asked to do so. She loved him even more for making such an effort to change. And it already showed. He was a much happier boy._

_Edmund was scowling at them, but the twinkle in his eye told them that he wasn’t that mad._

_“Can I tell her now?” Edmund whined. Peter just nodded._

_Edmund turned to her and said in a very excited voice: “Tomorrow, before breakfast, Peter and I are going to begin sword training with General Oreius!”_

_Both the boys look at her expectantly; all she could do was smile. Their anticipation showed clearly on both their faces._

_“But this is dangerous! You might get hurt again…” she trailed off._

_“Susan, don’t you understand?” Peter asked gently. “The White Witch might be dead, but not all her followers are. We have to be prepared for more battles.”_

_“And next time we’ll actually know how to defend ourselves,” Edmund added._

_“Yes, I realize that. I really do. And I know that as kings you need to be on the battlefield,” the queen said with a sigh. “But I don’t have to like it!”_

_The kings laughed at her anxieties, and gave her each a hug._

_“No, you don’t have to like it,” Edmund said with a smile. “It actually would have been worse if you had, I think.”_

_“Yeah, if you don’t worry about us, who will?” the High King said teasingly._

_All she could do was smile at them. “I love you, you know. So, no getting stabbed down and killed!” She pointed at them. “Now, have you told Lucy?” She asked them with a smile._

_Edmund shook his head again and started scouting for his younger sister. “There she is, dancing with Mr. Tumnus.” As he walked to Lucy, Peter and Susan could hear him muttering: “Bet she’ll be jealous.”_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

She realized that she was crying and she hurriedly dried them before they could ruin her makeup.

Both of her brothers had grown to be great swordsmen. In the end, the two of them together had made an unstoppable team until nobody dared to wage a war against Narnia. They always fought side by side, so one king’s shield was never far away to protect the other. Oreius had once said something about how her brothers fought, a quote she would never forget: 

_“Back to back, side to side. Each one was the other's greatest weapon and defence, both on the field and off. And so they balanced each other.”_

She counted herself lucky that she hadn’t had to watch that many battles or fights. But she had gone to watch Peter and Edmund practice, something they did every morning. In later years, when they were both adults, their matches were something to be seen. When they fought together against their teachers, it was beautiful to watch. Their swordplay looked like a complicated dance that only they knew the steps of. She would almost call it art. 

When they returned to England she knew that sword fighting was probably one of the things they missed the most. It had become a passion for the both of them, a way to get all stress out of their bodies. 

She had her own way of working off her pent-up emotions. When she got tired and angry she would go for a swim. She could spend hours in the ocean just gliding through the water. The feel of all her muscles working and stretching always got her into a good mood. She always got more energy after an hour in the sea. Sadly she hadn’t gotten to swim much after they got back. One of the reasons was because it brought back too many memories, and also there were no lake near by the Professor’s house. 

Susan never directly asked, but she thought that Lucy’s way of coping with stress was taking her horse out for a long ride, or spending time in her garden. Lucy could spend hours soaked in mud and earth taking care of her flowers. Her garden grew to be big and beautiful. Lucy’s garden had become a place were the four of them could just relax. Ed would go there to read, and Peter would go there to hide. He thought it was an excellent hiding place, but of course, the whole castle knew he would go there. They would leave him alone anyway, because whenever the High King went to the garden they knew he needed a break. Susan herself would go there for the peace and quiet, or to listen to the birds sing. 

So when they returned back here to England, all these ways of coping were taken away from them. They were in this stressful situation and they didn’t have their usual tools to help them handle it. 

There was no lake were she could swim off the tension, there were no swords that Peter and Edmund could clash together and use to fight off the aggression with, and there was no horse Lucy could take out for an energizing run. And Mrs. Mcready wouldn’t even let Lucy touch her garden with a ten- foot pole. So without their tools of handling stress, they felt frustrated and lost.

Susan walked around Peter and Edmund’s room and realized that it had been a very long time since she’d last been in there. She looked beside the bookcase and blinked in surprised at what she saw: In the corner lay two broadswords and a bow with some arrows. 

She recognized one of the swords. If she remembered correctly it had been a gift from Professor Kirke. The old man had tutored Peter through the summer and he had presented the sword to Peter after her brother had passed his entry examinations for Oxford. Peter had been ecstatic at the gift, so had Edmund. Since they only had one sword they couldn’t really fight, so it didn’t see any use until the following year when Peter and Lucy gave Edmund a sword of his own for his seventeenth birthday. She lifted up Edmund’s sword and remembered the first time she had seen it.

_She was sitting in the living room; there were a couple of days before Edmund’s birthday and she had yet to find him a present. The door flew open and Lucy came running in._

_“Susan! You will never guess what a perfect present we just found for Ed!” Her eyes were sparkling and her face was radiant. For a second Susan could pretend that Lucy was a queen again. Then Peter came in carrying something long._

_“Well, what is it?” she asked, trying to conceal how curious she was. She had a feeling that it would be something she didn’t like, something to do with… That place._

_Lucy looked at Peter and something passed between them, before Lucy nodded slightly. Peter un-wrapped the thing from the brown paper and pulled out a long sword._

_A low gasp escaped her before she could stop it. There was a twinkle in her brother’s eyes, so she carefully rearranged her face._

_“What a pretty sword,” was all she said before she turned back to her magazine._

_Peter sighed and Lucy’s smile wavered. “Don’t- Don’t you want to know how we got it?” Lucy asked. Susan could clearly hear that there was a story that her sister longed to tell._

_She sighed. “Yes. How did you get it? It looks expensive.” Lu’s smile widened even more. Susan guessed that that was the question her sister had been waiting for._

_“Well, you see, we were walking down London looking for a good gift for Edmund. Peter said that he wanted to give him something who would remind Ed about Narnia.”_

_Susan made a strangled sound. A shadow passed over Lucy’s face, but when Susan didn’t say anything, she continued._

_“Then I said, that is a good idea, do you have anything in mind? He said it would be great if we could find a sword. So we went looking for an antique store. Finally we found one. And there in the corner it stood, Edmund’s sword!” she almost squealed._

_Susan held out her hand to Peter in a silent question if she could see the weapon. He handed it over. The sword was heavy in her hand and while looking at it a name sprang to mind. She knew what Edmund would call it, because it looked like all his other swords._

_“What number would this one be?” the question slipped out before she could stop it._

_Lucy gasped, while Peter answered the question like it was a normal occurrence that she talked about Narnia. “I believe it’ll be the tenth.”_

_She nodded and continued to study the blade. The hilt had the same length, and the grip and detail was surprisingly alike the ones Ed had carried in Narnia. He had had many swords through their years as royals. He had broken them, or out grown them. It wasn’t always his fault, off course, once he had fought the Ettins and one of them had snapped it off with his club. So, while he always got a new sword from Peter and the Blue River Smithy, he always named it the same: Shafelm, (which ever number he was on,) the Blade of the Western Wood._

_She shook her head out of her stupor and asked, “Was it very expensive?”_

_“Yes, well the price was a little stiff,” Lucy said. “But lucky for us, the clerk was a young man who thought I was very pretty…” The young girl wiggled her eyebrows._

_“No! You didn’t?” Susan exclaimed, but couldn’t help smiling._

_“Oh, yes. I used my sweetest voice and looked at him with my big blue eyes and asked if it wasn’t anything he could do to lower the price for us?” Lucy giggled._

_“It was a sight to be seen, Su,” Peter said. “I was not sure if I wanted to laugh or- or- you know, vomit.”_

_“He was putty in my hands, Susan. I understand now why you do it so much.” Her sister said and flung herself down on the sofa._

_“I do not!” Susan said in indignation._

_The blond boy leaned back into the chair he sat in and said while closing his eyes, “Yes, you do. It’s sickening. And now you’ve gotten Lucy to do it too.”_

_“Hey! At least I got us the sword!” Lucy huffed._

That was around the time when Susan wasn’t home much. She would spend all her time with her girl friends or at parties. Today, she could only think back on that with shame. Now that she was standing in the middle of her dead brothers’ bedroom she could not understand why she did it. Funny, how the death of her family was the thing she needed to gain some perspective. 

She mentally added the swords and the bow to the list of things she wanted to keep, before leaving the room. 

She slowly walked down the stairs. On the walls were framed photographs that were Helen’s pride and joy. Her mum loved taking pictures of her four children. There were four pictures of each stage of their childhood. There were pictures of when they were all newborns, pictures of their first steps at one, then when they were four on their bicycle, then first day of school at six. Every two years she would frame and hang up a new picture of them on the wall. Susan thought sadly that there would never be any picture of her, Edmund and Lucy joining Peter at university. 

When she reached the kitchen she was met by her aunt and her aunt’s husband, Charlie. She was enveloped into a warm hug by her aunt before she could even walk through the door. Aunt Anne’s eyes were red, a tell-tale sign that she had been crying. Susan kept forgetting that she wasn’t the only one who had lost her family. Anne lost her brother and his wife, a niece and both her nephews. Their eyes met and Susan could see that her aunt wanted her to know so badly that she wasn’t alone. But she was. Nobody would know how much her siblings had meant to her. She would always walk around feeling like three pieces of her soul was missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“Back to back, side to side. Each one was the other's greatest weapon and defence, both on the field and off. And so they balanced each other.”_ is a direct quote from [elecktrum’s](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/450594/elecktrum) story: [Heydensrun ](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3288684/1/Heydensrun)
> 
> Shafelm, and its history, and the Blue Rive Smithy are also borrowed from elecktrum and her awesome stories.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

The sun didn’t come out. The day was grey, which suited Susan’s mood fine. The world should know that this was a sad day. 

The church was big and cold and Susan didn’t like it at all. She had never really liked going to church. Their mother had always taken them there every Sunday. Susan always associated God’s house with long hours where she had to sit still listening to a boring sermon, and getting cold and stiff all over. She hadn’t been there in very long time. Church always made her think about Aslan, and she didn’t want to think about Him.

In front of the altar lay the five coffins they were going to bury today. She didn’t look at them long. It was almost unimaginable that the ornate wooden boxes held what was left of her family. They hadn’t told her much, they had wanted to spare her the details, but what she had read from the papers told her that the accident had been brutal. The people who were on the train had been crushed, while the ones standing on the platform died instantaneously. They hadn’t asked her to identify the bodies. She wasn’t sure why, maybe her aunt had done it, to spare her. 

The service seemed to last forever. Susan was only half- listening to what the priest was saying. People was looking at her funny, she guessed they expected her to cry. But she couldn’t, even if she wanted to. She was numb, she felt too much and she felt too little. She was hiding from the pain, yet embracing it. And the tears wouldn’t come. 

“But now, we can only hope that they are in a better place. In heaven with God.” 

The voice rang through her foggy head and brought her back to the present.

 _In heaven with God?_ she thought, _No, I hope they’re with Aslan. That’s were they’d want to be._

She followed everyone outside; they walked across the cemetery to where five empty graves stood waiting. She was suddenly so very cold. She couldn’t stand the thought of putting her siblings down into the cold damp earth. 

Susan stood alone as she watched her family being lowered down into the ground. She wouldn’t let anyone touch her. It started to drizzle as she stood unmoving when the priest said the last words before it was time to leave. 

Before her aunt pulled her away, she left a single daisy on Peter’s grave. She had many memories where they spent hours in a meadow making flower chains with daisies.

She left a white lily on Lucy’s grave. Susan had a faint memory of Lucy telling her that at the end of the world there were lots and lots of lilies, and how pretty they were, and how she wished Susan could’ve seen them. Susan thought Lucy would like to have lilies on her grave. 

And on Edmund’s grave she left a red rose. 

_The air was warm, and the sun had just set. The two monarchs were taking a walk in Lucy’s beautiful garden. They used to do that once or twice every month. It had started when they felt that their royal duties had taken up so much time that they hadn’t had any time to talk to each other anymore._

_“I love roses,” Edmund said suddenly._

_Susan looked at her brother with a smile. “Roses? I wouldn’t have thought you for a rose lover.”_

_The king laughed at that and grinned down at his sister. To Susan’s chagrin her little brother had grown a lot taller than her._

_“I don’t know much about flowers, but if I had to choose which one I thought was the prettiest, I would say roses,” he said simply._

_“No, you don’t know much about flowers or gardening at all! Lucy can’t believe that you are so incompetent when it comes to growing things,” Susan said, teasing her brother._

_“It’s just so boring!” Edmund exclaimed. “And when I can’t even make anything grow, then it just becomes even more boring.”_

_Susan patted his arm and they continued walking. The garden was gorgeous. Everyone who lived at Cair Paravel loved to spend time in Lucy’s garden. It was a known fact in Narnia, that the youngest queen was an excellent gardener. She had spent many hours learning from the dryads, and she had used her knowledge well. Her garden was one of a kind._

_Susan and Edmund usually spent their walks in the rose garden. They both had a love for the roses, while Lucy herself liked the lilies best. Peter on the other hand liked the wild flowers found growing in the meadows._

_Susan sighed and looked around. She wanted to have a clear recollection of the place. Tomorrow they were leaving for Calormen, and she wasn’t sure if it was such a good idea to leave Narnia while Peter was off fighting the Giants in the north. She knew that Edmund would prefer to be at his brother’s side, rather then coming with her._

_But she also knew that he would come, since she had asked him to accompanying her. He didn’t like Rabadash, and he really didn’t want her to marry him. But Susan felt that she had to explore the feelings she had for the prince, so tomorrow they would leave and sail for Tashbaan._

_“If I ever were to get married, there would only be roses in the wedding,” Edmund said with a faraway look._

_Susan laughed and said, “Wouldn’t that depend on the bride and her taste in flowers?”_

_Edmund thought about it. “No, I think that whoever I was to marry, would like roses just as much as me.”_

Before she left she took one last look at the graves. They all lay on a row, with her parents laying next to each other at the right. Beside her mother lay Peter with Lucy at his side, and beside Lucy lay Edmund. Even in death they protected her. 

The gathering afterwards was horrible, in later years she couldn’t remember much of it. She remembered that it was loud, everyone was saying something, but she could never really hear what it was. She remembered a hoard of old people, claiming to have known her parents and that the last time they saw her she was only a little girl.

“Bad business this,” They would say. “Such a horrible accident,” and they would pat her hand. “Poor child, how are you keeping up?”

She would smile a tight smile and mumble something, and they would leave to make room for even more people she didn’t know. 

The worst was hers, and her siblings’ friends. She never really knew that they had had so many of them. She had always thought that Narnia had been pulling them back from living normal lives. That was one of the reasons she lied and denied Narnia. 

But clearly she had been wrong. There were many young people here. There was a group of sixteen- year-old girls mourning Lucy. There were a big pack of young men, some of them she recognized as the boys Edmund and Peter used to play football with, mourning her brothers. And then there were her own friends, most of them girls, standing in the corner, admiring Peter’s friends. And she was struck by how silly they looked. 

For the first time she felt that she couldn’t relate to her friends. Well, if she was to be honest she had never been able to completely relate to her friends. Sometimes she would catch herself thinking that they were so young, that they didn’t really know what life was about. Sometimes she would slip up and say something like she missed wearing beautiful clothes, and the girls would look at her strangely and she had to think fast to find a way to explain it away. She had never consciously acknowledged that to herself before. But know, she realize that she didn’t want to be like them. 

Again, it hit her how unfair life was, and how the death of her family was what she needed to take a second look at the person she had become.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: 

The days that followed were the darkest of Susan’s life. She spent her time in her parents’ bed. She didn’t move and she didn’t eat. 

_*She was cold, so cold. It was shadowy and all she could see was the mist coming out of her mouth when she breathed. Where was she?_

_She started to walk, trying to find out where she was. An awful sound rang through the fog. A sharp noise like metal rubbing against metal, and she felt like her eardrums might pop. A smell came towards her with a warm wave of air. The smell reminded her of the bombings during the Blitz._

_A loud scream pierced through the air. The scream belonged to Lucy, she was sure of it. She started to run, she had to find Lucy, and she had to help her. Then the shadows cleared and she saw that she was standing on what used to be a train station. All around her there were people laying so still, with their faces etched in fear. Their limbs were twisted in odd angles and a smell of blood and burnt flesh floated through the air. The train was standing on the side with smoke coming out from under the wheels._

_And still she could hear Lucy scream. Where was she?_

_And then she looked down and saw Edmund’s pale face looking up at her. His eyes were glassy and unseeing. He was dead. She screamed.*_

She woke up sweating and panting. She looked around, desperate to see her siblings alive. Reality came crashing back at her, and she burst into tears.

_*The smoke was stinging her eyes. She once again walked past all the dead bodies. People was screaming and crying and she was desperately looking for Lucy, Edmund and Peter. If she could just find them quickly then she could save them from their fate._

_She was running down the platform, following Lucy’s scream. Then she tripped over something, scrambled up again and looked down at what she had fallen over. Her older brother was laying there; his eyes were open, looking at her accusingly._

_She stepped back from him, and then she tripped again. There beside Peter lay Edmund. His eyes were looking at her with blame. They were saying: ‘Why didn’t you save us, Su?’*_

The nightmares came every time she tried to sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes all she could see were the empty faces of her brothers.

_* She was standing inside the train. She looked around the compartment and what greeted her made her want to scream. Five familiar people lay on the floor and on the seats._

_First her eyes strayed to the two old people. She recognized the professor at once. It had been a very long time since she last saw him. Since she had refused to come on any gathering the man had invited her to, the last time she saw Professor Kirke was when he brought Peter home from their summer of studying. She knew that they wanted to talk about Narnia and that was something she had wanted to avoid. The woman bedside the professor was unknown to Susan. But if she had to make a guess, she guessed that it had to be Polly Plummer. She had overheard her siblings talking about her and the professor. Apparently they had been there when Narnia had been created._

_Both their faces were peaceful. It occurred to Susan that it looked like they were happy to leave this world behind. In a way, their faces made Susan feel better._

_But when she turned around she saw her cousin Eustace. His body lay in odd angles and it looked as if he had hit his head. Beside him lay a girl Susan had only met a couple of times._

_Her name was Jill. She had accompanied Eustace the second time he had gone to Narnia. She didn’t look like she was hurt at all. Her body lay across Eustace as if she was protecting him. From where she stood it seemed to Susan that Jill was only sleeping._

_The last person was Lucy. She had been sitting by the window and a piece of glass had pierced her back. Something else had made a gash in her sister’s cheek._

_It all became too much for Susan. She wanted to wake up now! But she couldn’t, she couldn’t even move. She was glued to the floor. She tried to close her eyes but all she could see was her dead sister’s face._

_“Aslan, oh Aslan! Please take me away, please make it stop!” she yelled._

_Then the train was gone and with it, the bodies of her loved ones. She found herself in a garden. It was summer and the sun had just risen. The morning fog was just residing to make way for the sunshine. A nice melody came from the birds in the trees and a sense of calm came over her._

_She walked around a bit and when she took a closer look she found out that it was indeed Lucy’s garden. All her favourite flowers were in bloom and the grass was green and lush. She felt a joy so intense that she could only laugh and run around, getting reacquainted with her favourite place in all the worlds._

_“Hello, dear one,” said a deep melodious voice behind her. She froze, but didn’t turn around. She didn’t dare. She knew the voice, of course. It was the voice she loved over any other and the voice she had dreamed of hearing again._

_“Please turn around, Susan,” the voice asked her._

_Slowly she turned to look into the deep eyes of the Great Lion. There he stood, the one she loved so much, the one she had been so angry with, the one she had forsaken. He glowed with more radiance than the sun, yet it didn’t hurt her eyes. The garden suddenly seemed less glorious because everything was focused on Him._

_Silent tears ran down her face. “Aslan,” she whispered._

_“Susan, why are you crying?” Aslan asked._

_“I’ve been such a fool,” she choked out._

_“Yes, you have,” the Lion said while watching her with his deep loving eyes._

_“Are you angry with me?” she fearfully asked._

_“Yes.”_

_At that answer she fell to the ground. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed._

_“I know, my child.” Aslan lay down on the ground next to her. “Come lay with me,” he said gently._

_She did what he asked and wondered, “Why are you so nice to me? I do not deserve it. I was so angry with you; I thought you’d left me.”_

_“I would never leave you, dear one. I love you, even when you don’t love me.”_

_“I always loved you, Aslan. I just was so angry... and hurt. I thought you didn’t want me anymore. Why else did you send me away?”_

_“I sent you away because it was your time. I had another plan for you. You needed to be close to your own world again.”_

_Susan was crying now and the next sentence was almost drowned out by her sobs._

_“And I was so horrible,” she said._

_“Yes, you hurt your siblings very much,” Aslan answered._

_“But I always assumed that we had time. That someday we would reconcile. But then they died, and I guess that’s my punishment,” she said quietly._

_“Punishment?” Aslan asked._

_“Yes, you took my siblings but left me behind,” she said simply._

_“That was never meant as a punishment for you, my dear child,” Aslan said calmly. His voice was so consoling she couldn’t help but believe him. “That,” he continued, “is just how fate and freewill work. Your siblings’ choices lead them to the railroad accident. That event was always meant to take place, but it was your family’s choices that lead them there. Just as your choices lead you to not be there.”_

_“So you weren’t punishing me by taking my family away?” she asked timidly._

_“I would never punish you, Susan,” Aslan said with so much love._

_“Are they with you?” Susan asked. “Are they happy wherever they are?”_

_“Yes, they are with me. Remember, all roads lead to me,” was the reply._

_“I believe now, Aslan. I won’t forget, and I won’t forsake you ever again.”_

_“Stand up, Daughter of Eve,” Aslan said. Susan did, and when she stood up she could see that Aslan was much bigger now then he had been before._

_Then she felt a warm breath on her, and she could feel her spirit lifting._

_“Now you are Queen Susan the Gentle again,” Aslan said with pride. “Do not forget who you are, child.”_

_“How can I keep on going? How can I do this all alone?” she asked._

_“Susan. You are never alone; I will always be with you.”_

_And for the first time in weeks, Susan felt warm again. “I wish I could tell them. I wish I could tell them that I remember. That I never forgot. I wish I could tell them that I love them.”_

_“They already know. They love you, and they will be waiting for you,” Aslan said._

_“Really? You will let me come?” she asked hopefully._

_“When it is your time, I will welcome you with open arms into my country.” The light in his eyes intensified._

_“Remember that I am always with you. Remember who you are. When you feel doubt, look to me and I will always help you,” his voice got louder and the shine of his mane shone in her eyes. Its brilliance outshone the sun. For the first time in a long while she felt completely safe. His voice swept through her and into her heart._

_“Go back into your world, lioness. Go back into your world Queen Susan of Narnia, and remember, when it is your time, we will be waiting.”_

_She felt a warm breath on her face and she woke up in her bed._

**Fin.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue left.


	6. Epilogue

_“They will live again in freedom  
In the garden of the Lord.”_ ~Finale – Les Misérables

“Your Majesty?” a rather familiar voice said. She stood with her eyes closed, and everything was so nice and warm. 

“Your Majesty, they are waiting for you,” the voice said again. Where had she heard that voice before? A glimmer of a memory surfaced- he’d lost his tail once, hadn’t he? The honour and glory of a Mouse.

She opened her eyes. All she could see was green. Then she looked down. There he stood the brave mouse. He was smiling at her and then he bowed a deep bow.

“Your Majesty Queen Susan, we have anxiously waiting your return,” he said in a serious voice. 

“Reepicheep!” she exclaimed, “It’s so nice to see you again.” She looked around and asked, “But what are you doing here? I thought you were in Aslan’s Country.”

“I am,” he answered, “and so are you, Your Highness.” 

Susan gasped and took a closer look at her surroundings. She saw that she stood in a doorway. Before her was a beautiful country, with green grass as long as the eye could see. Behind her was only darkness. 

“Do you want to come in, Queen Susan the Gentle?” Reepicheep asked seriously.

Susan knew that it was important that she answered the question. No one was forcing her to come this time. She took a deep breath, straightened her back, pulled back her shoulders and raised her head. 

“Yes, I would like to come in, Reepicheep,” said Queen Susan.

The mouse nodded and moved away from the doorway, spread out his arm and let her in. Then he walked before her and said loudly, “Queen Susan has returned home!”

And suddenly she was surrounded by people: Fauns, satyrs, dryads and naiads; Animals of every kind. Happy dogs were barking and wagging their tails and cats rubbed up against her legs. For a minute she thought she saw some of the Bulgy Bears she met the second time she came to Narnia, but the crowd was so thick she couldn’t be sure.

She smiled and waved. She could hear the crowd telling each other: “That’s Queen Susan the Gentle. You know, one of the four monarchs of the Golden Age, the High King’s sister.” And for the first time in a very long time she felt like a queen. 

After her family passed away, she had managed to pull her life together in more ways than one. She had to learn how to live alone, without her family. She had to learn how to live with Narnia. Because she hadn’t really done that, she had denied it, tried to put it out of her mind and out of her life. She finally grieved- for her family and the loss of Narnia. 

It had taken her months before she could function properly again. She sold her childhood home and got herself a flat. She furnished her new home with furniture from her old one. She hung Lucy’s painting of Aslan over her mother’s sofa. On another wall she hung her brothers’ swords. Every single book from the Pevensie household found their way into her new study. 

While sorting through Lucy’s things Susan found something that would help her through all the rough spots she would encounter later in her life. In a box under Lucy’s bed she found notebooks filled with their adventures in Narnia. Lucy had written it all down. Her little sister’s writing was very good, and while reading it Susan felt that she was there again. Lucy had such good memory and remembered things Susan had forgotten. Those books became Susan’s greatest treasure, and later they would serve as bedtime stories for Susan’s two children. 

Dealing with the loss of her family made Susan become the person she found she wanted to be. She met her husband while studying english literature. She would later tell him everything. She told him about Narnia, about her betrayal and how her siblings died before they reconciled. She would tell him, that even though she had lived two lifetimes, she didn’t properly grow up before her family died.

He didn’t believe her right away, but for some reason he believed her after a while. He told her that there was something in her voice, about the way she talked about Aslan. He found that he already knew Him. For the first time in many years Susan stepped back into a church. A building that had seemed so cold to her was now brimming with warmth. With the help form her husband she finally found Aslan’s name in this world. 

She had a very happy life. But there was always something missing. She knew what it was of course. A day didn’t go by where she didn’t think about her siblings. It saddened her that they never got to grow up here; they would have become great people. And she lamented that her children had to grow up without the influence of their aunt and uncles. They could have taught her children things she and her husband couldn’t. Edmund would have taught them to give everyone a chance, that first impressions aren’t always right. Peter would have told them that nothing was more important than looking after your family. And Lucy would’ve taught them to never lose faith. Susan did the best she could, and she liked to think that she did a good job.

Her life had been a happy one. It was filled with laughter and love. She loved her children and she loved her husband. She was devastated when he died. The years went by, and her children had children of their own and she retired from teaching. 

Yesterday it had been her grandson’s Michael birthday. He turned fifteen and his parents had thrown a large party in his honour and she had gone to bed exhausted. She had fallen asleep right away and had a wonderful dream filled with golden light and voice telling her to follow him. Then Reepicheep woke her up.

She followed Reepicheep as he led her further in. The crowd of beasts and people parted as they walked by. All of them bowed when she passed them. It was so strange yet so familiar. She was so incredibly happy to be there among her subjects. She was once again Susan the Gentle, Queen of Narnia!

As she moved slowly through the crowd, Susan realized that the land surrounding her wasn’t as unfamiliar as she had first thought. The beautiful country was Narnia! A grander and a prettier Narnia, where the colours were more radiant, where the air was cleaner and the waters were clearer. 

Joy bubbled up in her and she laughed. She couldn’t believe that she was finally here, just as Aslan promised. 

“Your Majesty,” Reepicheep said when they stopped walking. “Your royal siblings are waiting to see you.” He bowed and gestured to seven people standing on the other side of the meadow. 

She froze and said absently, “Thank you, Reepicheep.”

Susan kept her eyes on the seven and didn’t notice when the mouse left her side. There they stood, the people she had longed to see for over fifty years. But now, when the time had finally arrived, she was suddenly very scared. 

Their clothes was what caught her eyes first. The colour of Lucy’s light blonde hair stood out between her dark and blond haired brothers. Peter stood a few inches higher then Edmund and was the tallest of the seven. Eustace stood next to Jill, the two was a little taller than Lucy. The professor, who was blond! To Susan’s surprise, stood beside a fair woman she guessed to be Polly.

As she looked at her friends who looked so much older yet not old at all, she wondered what she looked like. Her arms and legs felt much more limber then they had the last time she used them. Looking at her hands she saw nice youthful hands, like the ones she had had when she was queen. 

They must hate me, Susan thought, I was so horrible. I would hate me. 

She once again straightened her back and raised her head, Remember who you are, Susan. You are Queen Susan the Gentle and you will ask for their forgiveness. Easier said then done, and her legs did shake a little but she walked towards her family in an even pace fit for a queen. 

She had always carried herself with grace, she had often heard that whenever she entered a room people always noticed her. Her mere presence commanded attention. Some things you never forgot. Even though she had been turned back to a child, her body - or her mind - had never forgotten what the etiquette teachers in Cair Paravel had taught her. 

As she got closer she could see the faces she had longed to see for such a long time. Their faces showed clearly that they were royals. Did it show on her face too? They had always looked like monarchs to her, even when they were dressed in English school uniforms. But now, when they stood there in beautiful Narnian clothing, they did not need their crowns to show who they were. But they were there anyway, their light pretty crowns. Then she realized that hers was on her head, too. 

Her hands were sweaty and her heart was pounding when she stopped a couple of steps away from them. First she looked at the two people she didn’t recognize. He had a blond beard and twinkling blue eyes, she was fair and smiled warmly at Susan. With a start she realized that it was Professor Kirke and the lady beside him must be Polly, the one she had seen in her nightmares. She had spent a lot of time regretting not ever meeting her. Lucy’s notebook told her what a nice lady she had been. She smiled at them before looking at Eustace and Jill, who stood close together beside Polly. 

Susan had only met Jill a couple of times, once Eustace and Jill had come to stay with them during the summer holidays. She hadn’t talked much to the younger girl, but as much as she could remember Jill seemed like a nice girl. Eustace sure seemed to like her, and she knew that Eustace was very picky with his friends. 

Eustace looked better then Susan had ever seen him before. Everyone was timeless here, and Susan couldn’t decide if he looked older or younger than the last time she saw him. 

Then, when she couldn’t delay it any longer, she looked at her siblings. There they stood the rulers of the Golden Age. Lucy was a little taller and her hair was longer than Susan had ever seen it before. She was dressed in a brilliant red dress and her crown- made of elecktrum- lay gently amidst her curls. Edmund had a very commanding presence and was dressed in a forest green tunic, his sword hang on his hip. Susan couldn’t imagine that he would ever need it here, but she wasn’t surprised that he still chose to wear it. Peter stood at the end of the row, with his broad shoulders and blond curls. His tunic was a dark blue and his sword was also at his hips. 

They didn’t look angry, but they didn’t look happy either. They just looked at her, as if they were waiting for her to say something first. 

She took a deep breath and said: “I’m sorry Lucy for telling you to stop playing games. I’m sorry that I called Narnia a game. I knew I was wrong but I said it anyway and I’m so sorry!”

She finished with tears rolling down her cheeks. When she finally found the courage to look at her sister she saw that Lucy was crying too. But she was smiling through her tears. Lucy came forward and hugged her and whispered into her ear, “It’s all right, everything’s all right.”

Then she looked at Peter. Her big brother who had always protected her, who had hugged her when she was sad, the brother she had hurt with her callous words. 

“Peter, I’m so sorry for all the hurtful words I said to you. I’m sorry for telling you to grow up; when in truth it was me who needed to do that. I was so mean and I’m so sorry! Please forgive,” she sobbed.

The next thing she knew she was enveloped into a warm hug. “I forgive you Su. In fact I forgave you a long time ago. I’m just happy you are here,” Peter said. 

When he let her go she looked over at her little brother. The one she had hurt the most, the one who had been the angriest with her. The last months he had been alive they had fought a lot; he hadn’t wanted to believe she could forget. He never really gave up on her. Edmund never believed that she had forgotten, and he had been right, and she had hurt him with her words and rejection. Edmund couldn’t understand how he wasn’t the biggest proof that they had been there. He was also the only one who had any marks from their time in Narnia. The scar the Witch had given him- when she stabbed him- was still on his stomach after they fell out of the wardrobe. There had been many a time when Susan was jealous of that scar. It must be so much easier to keep faith when you have a scar to prove that you were there.

“Edmund, my dear Edmund,” Susan said. “I’m so sorry for all the pain I caused you. You were right, I didn’t forget. I lied. I lied because it hurt, because I thought it would be easier to live my life if I denied it. If I told myself that it was only a game, a dream, then it wouldn’t hurt as much. I was wrong. I’m sorry that I betrayed you. I’m sorry that I lied, and I’m sorry that I hurt you.” 

Susan was crying again. She was ashamed of the person she used to be and she couldn’t look Edmund in the eye. 

“Susan,” Edmund said calmly. “Look at me.” 

She reluctantly did and to her surprise she saw that Edmund was smiling down at her. 

“I know,” he said simply. “I know that you are sorry. I know that you have been sorry for a very long time. And I forgave you that first day.” He cocked his head to the side at the sight of her tears. “I forgave you because you are my sister; I forgave because I love you. And because no one knows better than me that sometimes we do very stupid things.” 

He opened his arms and she walked over and hugged him. “Thank you,” she whispered. 

The serious bits were over for now and the others came over and more hugs were given, and everyone was smiling and laughing. Susan thought she was going to burst with joy. 

After hours- or maybe years- of talking, Lucy tapped Susan on the shoulder and nodded to someone standing behind her. She turned around and there He stood. The Lion was bigger then she had ever seen him before. She stood up, shaking a bit, and walked over to him. 

“Aslan,” she breathed out the sigh that had been sitting in her throat for so long. 

“Susan,” he answered. “Welcome home.” He bowed down and gave her a lion’s kiss. With Aslan’s breath she felt taller and braver. 

“Do- do I get to stay?” she stuttered. 

Aslan laughed and said, “Of course dear heart. You have completed your earthly life and now you are here with me,” he said kindly. 

She looked around with wonder. She had passed through the Shadow- Lands and into the Light . She got to spend eternity here with Aslan!

“You have lived a good life Susan. You made hope from despair. You have been every inch of a queen. I have walked beside you every step of the way, and I’m very proud of you Queen Susan.” 

Through the sunlight she saw three people walking up towards her. Her heart skipped a beat. She looked at Aslan in a silent question, if it was really them? The Lion nodded and gestured for her to go meet them. A cry of joy escaped her lips at she ran towards her husband and her parents.

Surrounded by her family and friends she felt that she was finally home. Home, where she was meant to be. 

**The end.**


End file.
